


when i feel alone i reach for you and you bring me home

by Poppedthep



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Angst, F/F, Fanfiction of Fanfiction, Fluff, Love, Sad, i'm headed straight for the castle AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-25 01:48:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19735894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poppedthep/pseuds/Poppedthep
Summary: Vanessa is in her sixties and her joints have started to ache in the winter when Brooke says,“Humans die.”“Yes baby.”“When you die,” Brooke pauses only briefly but for someone who never falters it is noticeable, “I will ask A’Keria to switch me off and leave me with you.”“No baby, you can’t do that.”"It is not difficult. There are instructions in my operations manual--"[This is fanfic of fanfic! Inspired by wreckthatnecklace's adorable robot Brooke and human Vanessa in the stunningi'm headed straight for the castle. You probably need to read that for this to make sense. I highly recommend reading it anyway, it's fantastic!This fic comes way in the future after that. Probably AU because that story is still playing out! This was written after Chapter 10 before Chapter 11.]





	when i feel alone i reach for you and you bring me home

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [i'm headed straight for the castle](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19225762) by [wreckthatnecklace (therestisdetail)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/therestisdetail/pseuds/wreckthatnecklace). 



> Loving the tour stuff we're getting but this has nothing to do with any of that!
> 
> Anyone who is expecting my usual Branjie fic this a little different. wreckthatnecklace obviously has such a specific style. Mine is nowhere near as succinctly articulate but was fun to try match/nod to it. 
> 
> This came pouring out kind of involuntarily inspired by these super compelling characters that I am in love with. Blame robot Brooke who has me feeling some type of way saying "I am broken" all sweetly....and also just the whole thing, it's so good!!
> 
> For those hoping for more of my usual, I started a sequel to I Bet after being inspired by people asking for one! It was going to be short and is already longer than the original haha. I don't get time to write often and as you know I don't post until the whole thing is finished to avoid the fic-abandoning compulsion that used to afflict me strongly - so no promises when it will be done but some wheels are in motion.
> 
> Highly recommend you read wreckthatnecklace's fic before this. Cannot stress enough how little sense this will make if you haven't. 
> 
> This is probably AU because I've made up some things about the world for my own purposes!
> 
> Warning - Sad themes ahead.

Vanessa is in her sixties and her joints have started to ache in the winter when Brooke says,

“Humans die.”

“Yes baby.”

It is disorienting to see steady serene Brooke look uncertain before her expression smoothes out. She has learned so many human expressions.

“When you die,” Brooke pauses only briefly but for someone who never falters it is noticeable, “I will ask A’Keria to switch me off and leave me with you.”

“No baby, you can’t do that.”

"It is not difficult. There are instructions in my operations manual--"

"You know I ripped that up the day I got you."

"You can download a new copy. But you will not need it. A'Keria will know."

"Baby I don't mean can't like that. I mean you shouldn't."

“I am yours.”

“Yeah. And I’m yours too. That registration don’t mean shit. You’re not my property, okay? If anybody belong to anybody, we belong to each other.”

“So we will die together.” Brooke says like it makes perfect sense. Her ice blonde Juliet over here.

“No,” Vanessa is horrified.

“Yes. I want that.” Brooke says stubbornly, wrapping herself around Vanjie like a cape.

Vanjie, not for the first time, regrets ever telling her to be clear about what she wants. She turns in Brooke’s strong gentle arms to face her.

“Think about it baby. That’d be a waste. You could go on and live a great life after me.”

“No. I could not.” Brooke says firmly. Arches a brow at her. "I mean that in the same way you did."

Oh so she wants to get clever about it.

“You’d still have your sisters.”

Brooke pauses at that. Thinks before she responds.

Of her beloved sisters all off living their different lives and of Vanjie who falls asleep next to her every night.

“I love them very much. But it is not the same. I am yours.”

Vanjie strokes her soft cheek.

“I know baby. I’m yours too.”

Over the years she has developed the habit of saying that any time Brooke reminds her she is hers.

Just to make sure she’s saying it in the way that’s lovely, not the way that’s horrifying.

The first time she did that Brooke repeated it.

“You are mine,” carefully, tasting it out, and it was like the sun coming out on her face.

Brooke has her sisters and one thing in the world that is only hers. Vanjie. She doesn’t need more.

“You gotta live your whole life, baby, even when I’m gone. However long it is. Stick it out til the end. See what happens.”

Vanjie bravely tries to sound cheerful although this topic is equal parts terrifying and devastating.

“You never know, maybe you’ll fall in love with somebody else.”

“No. I will not Vanessa,” Brooke says with calm certainty. 

///

The synth is a compromise.

They make it many, many years later, when Brooke’s feelings have not changed and Vanjie is given months to live.

Nina is long gone but there are other Ninas now, who Nina has trained, and they make her with care and love. An exact copy of the original, in a younger version of her body.

“If we doin this at least model me from when I was hot. I ain’t spending eternity lookin like a tired old lady if I ain’t got to.”

They base synths on adult brains regularly now.

Young brains are still used for developing completely new synths. Most of the good quality models in the past thirty years were grown from human bases like Brooke was.

It has helped with their rights some, but not enough yet.

Adult brains are usually for requests like this.

They develop less afterwards but begin more fully realized, like the human adults they’re made from. Retaining not just memories and synapse patterns but full personalities. Everything in the brain the day it was created. They can even salvage memories the human thinks they forgot. Exact copies of a person, eternally durable.

The law where they live says a person can request in their will to have everything transferred to a synth that was made using their adult brain in the event of their death, including their right of personhood.

They are lucky to live where they do. Some States do not acknowledge these requests.

There are cases where one person has made multiple synths, died, and the synths took each other to court. Usually the oldest wins, even though the most recent will be the most like that person by the time of their death.

///

“Damn I look good,” Vanjie laughs when they meet the synth.

“Did I really used to look like that?”

“Yes,” says Brooke, whose memory is photographic, quietly.

It looks like Vanjie when they first met. Like she time travelled to meet them.

The synth has all Vanjie’s memories so it does not need to be informed what it is doing there or why. Immediately its eyes light up and it joins in with Vanjie laughing at exactly the same distinctive pitch and tone, an eerie echo.

The synth has all Vanjie’s memories so Brooke realizes it must already love her.

“Hello,” the synth says to Brooke, smiling softly.

“My name is Vanjie and I am yours.”

“Atta girl,” says human Vanjie, who knows the synth shares her memory of Brooke saying that to her when she first awoke and is trying to be cute. It’s exactly what she would have done.

Brooke will only call the synth “Vanessa” at first, a sure sign of exactly how she feels about it.

The human Vanjie promises if she still hates it after a year she can ask A’Keria to switch herself and Vanessa off and lay them both down in the dirt with her.

(She only promises this because she trusts full well how little A’Keria will cooperate with that request.)

Or Brooke can switch Vanessa off and go live her life. She swears she won’t mind if Brooke chooses that.

Brooke knows she will never choose that.

Brooke knows how things work and that is not how belonging to someone works.

Not belonging like possession, belonging like when Vanjie says it back and she knows they belong to each other.

The synth blinks compliantly, listening along, looking like Vanjie when she would try to act innocent.

Brooke promises to give it a year.

Yvie passed a few years ago and Brooke still misses her constantly. Is thankful for the pieces of her she will always carry in her mind.

She loved Yvie very very very much.

Knowing how she feels about Vanjie compared to how she felt about Yvie, Brooke cannot understand how she will be able to make it a day without her. It feels like her programming is short circuiting when she tries to think about it, like a boot is kicking her chest in.

The synth is very sensitive to her feelings and does not try to push her to interact. Waits to let Brooke take the lead, just like Vanjie did when she first brought Brooke home.

Brooke tries not to find that as endearing as she did the first time.

///

The synth charges downstairs. When Brooke is in bed about to plug herself in one night she hears Vanjie down there talking softly to it.

She walks with light silent footsteps to the top of the stairs and hears her making it promise to take good care of Brooke, quizzing it on what Brooke likes, a test, just to make sure.

The science that made it is perfect and infallible but still Vanjie must make sure it has every piece of information she has.

The synth talks with Vanjie in complete agreement, promising it will do its best to make Brooke happy.

Brooke listens to the synth list off every vacation they’ve taken, every movie they watched more than once, every song they danced to. The things that make Brooke smile, the things that make her sad, the tricks to calm her when she gets angry, the signs of vulnerability to watch for that Brooke never acknowledges. The places on her body she most likes to be kissed. What rhythm, how much pressure she needs to orgasm quickly. Where to touch and what speed to draw it out longer instead. What positions she prefers to cuddle in. The five things that are most important to her in the world, though that’s an easy one. There used to be six, now there are five. Soon there may be only four.

Every answer is correct. Vanjie hums along approvingly.

Vanessa remembers dates they went on decades ago that Vanjie has forgotten. Vanjie remembers the important ones but Vanessa tells her about the mundane Tuesdays at parks feeding the ducks. Vanjie’s voice gets softer as she listens, “Oh yeah. Aw that was a good day.”

Brooke is also a synth so she remembers every one of them perfectly too.

The two of them talking softly together sounds like when Vanjie is trying to work out a problem and thinks out loud to herself.

///

Brooke does not hear the stair lift before Vanjie pushes the door open in her nightgown so the synth must have carried her up.

Brooke does not know if it is wrong to feel territorial when the other person is technically the same person she is feeling protective of.

“Is it not painful to think of? If you are gone and I am with her?” Brooke asks softly when they are both in bed.

“No baby,” Vanjie links their fingers.

Their hands do not fit together as easily as they used to. Brooke’s are still soft and smooth but the knuckles have swollen bigger on Vanjie’s fingers.

"It is painful to think of for me," Brooke says quietly.

“No, baby. You’ll be with me. And I’ll get to have a nice sleep."

"You sleep every night," Brooke argues, perfectly logical. "Most nights it is nice."

"A big sleep baby," Vanjie sighs and strokes Brooke's cheekbone.

"I ain't perfect like you, angel. I’m real tired.”

"I am not perfect."

Brooke brings their joined hands to her mouth and brushes a gentle kiss to the creased skin on the back of Vanjie's hand.

"Perfect could stop this," Brooke's voice is very soft.

"Perfect could keep you."

Brooke's hand finds its way to Vanjie's waist, gently stroking, draws her closer. Vanjie comes willingly, presses a kiss to her mouth. Looks at her with awe, like she is trying to memorize her features.

She must know them all by heart by now but she often can't help getting distracted by Brooke's beauty.

Vanjie's smile is warm and her body is so warm even the air around it feels heated. The warmth of her feels different to Brooke than heat from other humans. 

"I am sorry I cannot be perfect for you."

"No baby. You don't got nothing to be sorry about. Baby you _can_ keep me, that's what we doing."

Brooke twitches in discontent. 

"Not that synth. I want to keep _you_."

Brooke presses closer, presses a firmer kiss to her lips and whispers against her mouth, "I want."

Vanjie sighs and melts into her. Before she met Brooke, if she ever pictured herself very old, she never would have imagined she'd be with someone who could spark desire in her so sharply still. Of course she hardly knew about synths at all then. She never would have imagined _this_.

Brooke kisses across to her ear, down her neck, and Vanjie threads a hand in her hair, fingers stroking patterns on her scalp. Vanjie was about to make a point and between soft sighs she remembers it. 

"Hmm, can't nobody do that baby, ain't no one that perfect or powerful."

Brooke sucks harder at her collarbone as if in protest and Vanjie sighs pleasure, even as exhaustion begins to overtake passion.

Brooke does not suck hard for long because she does not like to leave bruises, now that they take so long to heal. 

Brooke's hands slip gentle under her nightgown and Vanjie catches them before she starts getting so worked up it will be too late to stop.

"Not tonight baby. I'm too tired."

Vanjie threads their fingers together, squeezes to show she's sorry to stop them.

Brooke pauses for less than a tenth of a second, manages to cover any disappointment well, before agreeing,

"Yes. I am ready to charge."

She withdraws her hands and brings them to Vanjie's face, giving her a gentle goodnight kiss. Vanjie looks at her fondly.

"Whatever gonna happen we can't change it. So it ain't worth worrying your pretty head about, angel."

Brooke is able to retain so much information that Vanjie will never know, but she manages to learn new things from Vanjie all the time. 

Brooke plugs in her extension cord as she does every night so she can stay all the way over on Vanjie's side of the bed and hold her close, savor every moment of her delicate human warmth, every breath against her. Vanjie cuddles close. Her joints do not bend as well anymore but she does her best to wrap herself around Brooke as she has done every night they have slept together.

Vanjie still looks at Brooke like she is the best thing she has ever seen. It makes Brooke feel like the humans in the love stories on television.

Brooke strokes Vanjie’s hair until she falls asleep. Kisses her softly when she is snoring. Vanjie smiles at her touch even in her sleep.

Brooke does not know how it feels to be tired.

She knows how it feels to try with everything you have to reach one more step when your battery is nearly empty and you want desperately to get somewhere.

She does not know if that is the correct comparison because she cannot imagine how hard it would be existing continuously in that state for any length of time.

///

For years now Brooke has fed Vanjie her meals because her hands shake too much to do it herself without spilling. 

Vanjie is losing her sense of taste. Now she is more like Brooke at meal times and it is up to Brooke to remind her to eat.

Brooke has tried to look after Vanjie since Vanjie unboxed her. She used to try to pretend she did not need Brooke's help. As she has aged she has had to accept it.

Brooke cares for Vanjie in all sorts of ways, but she is not her carer.

She is her lover, partner, would be her wife if the law allowed. They do not label it openly to everyone, because most of the world is still not ready to accept a love like theirs.

Although Brooke is strong and powerful and does not need help with obvious things, Vanjie cares for Brooke in all sorts of ways too.

They eat spaghetti and watch Vanessa clean up in the kitchen. Brooke moves the fork to Vanjie's mouth without looking at it, watches Vanessa very closely, waiting for any little movement that will prove she is not Vanjie, but there are none.

Vanessa picks up a stack of eight dishes at once easily.

“Damn I still ain’t used to that,” the synth shakes its head. Smiles over at Vanjie.

“Girl I wish you could feel it. Like when we was seventeen and living for the gym but even better.”

They laugh in exact unison and Brooke is getting used to that.

“Wish I could beam it back in to ya however they took me out so you could feel it, bitch. They ain’t figure how to make us telepathic yet, did they baby?”

The synth and Vanjie both turn at the same time to look at Brooke with the same questioning expression on different age faces.

“Sorry. Brooke.” the synth corrects itself at the look on Brooke’s face.

“There are no telepathic synths yet,” Brooke answers.

“You ain’t got nothing to be sorry for,” Vanjie tells the synth. “Give her time.”

“I know,” Vanessa says. They have some sort of conversation without words and Vanessa turns back to the dishes.

“If Yvie was my sister then she cannot be you,” Brooke mutters to Vanjie, anguished.

Vanjie is done with her meatballs. She pushes the plate away, and Brooke’s hand with the fork.

“You have not eaten enough.”

“I ain’t very hungry baby.”

“You were not hungry yesterday. You must eat enough nutrients to support your body.”

“I’m a tiny old lady, I ain’t gotta do nothing.”

“I must take care of you.”

“You do, baby,” Vanjie pats Brooke’s hand. “You take real good care of me.”

Vanjie jerks her head towards Vanessa.

“You overthinking it baby. Don’t nobody know who I am better than myself and I’m telling you it's me in there. You and Yvie started the same when you was little baby brains but then you went your own ways. That pretty lil thing right there got the same workings, she done been through everything I have. Everything we have, angel."

Vanessa is clearly listening across the kitchen, watching Brooke with the same urging eyes as Vanjie, but she doesn't interject. Lets Vanjie speak like their ambassador.

"We talked about it. She says it was like she was in this body and then she woke up in that body instead and now she can see us from the outside and she all strong and shit. You should talk to her.”

"I do not want tha--"

"Okay, okay. Don't talk to her unless you want to baby. You know it's your choice. It always has been."

Vanjie smiles kindly at Brooke, like she always, always has. Vanessa is smiling kindly too.

“What if I cannot believe she is you?”

“You can believe anything you want to baby. That’s the magic of it.”

Vanjie cups Brooke’s face tenderly, hand trembling against her jaw.

“She love you exactly how I do. That's all that matters.”

"But if I love her, you will not feel it."

Brooke frowns. She has learned so many human expressions, because they helped Vanjie know how she was feeling.

"Oh baby, I feel it. I won't never stop feeling it. You love on me so good. Don't you worry about that."

Vanjie pulls Brooke close to kiss her. Her hands shake as they have for years now. Brooke holds them between hers. So delicate she can see the human blood in veins vivid under her papery golden skin.

Humans have always seemed impossibly fragile to Brooke. It is why she tries to be very gentle with them.

They seem especially, terrifyingly fragile when it is a human she loves.

Vanjie seems to grow more fragile every day now. 

Brooke would give anything to protect her. To wrap her up in her arms and have that be enough.

///

The day Vanjie passes, Brooke cries. No tears come of course, but the feeling is so enormous she cannot hold in her sobs. The noises seem foreign as they burst out of her.

Vanessa strokes her hair, kisses her forehead.

“It’s okay baby. I ain’t gone. I’m right here.”

She had been waiting for Brooke to come to her first, but now Brooke is more alone than she has ever been and so Vanessa is there.

Brooke lets Vanessa wrap her arms around her for the first time, turning blindly into her.

Her body is not warm like the Vanjie Brooke knows, the Vanjie she has loved for eighty two years, the Vanjie who was a little furnace, even compared to other humans, but is now cold too. Brooke will not feel that heat again.

“I am...I am broken.” Brooke stutters against Vanessa’s shoulder.

“Something is wrong. I am broken. Where?”

Brooke’s hands run over herself blindly.

Vanessa stills her hands, holds them in hers. Vanessa’s hands do not shake and they are cold. She threads their fingers together and they fit perfectly because her knuckles are not swollen large and painful. Vanessa is a synth like Brooke but she has 109 years of experience as a human to Brooke’s 5.

“No baby. You’re not broken. It’s just your heart.”

“Oh,” Brooke says. A lifetime of lines from human television stories and songs slide into focus and make sense in a new way.

“ _Oh_ ,” Brooke says sadly. “I understand.”

Vanessa’s lips are cool against Brooke’s forehead. She rocks Brooke gently like humans do to babies that are screaming.

“It’s okay. I got you. It’s okay. It’s us now. We’ll be okay.”

Her voice is soft and low and identical, so familiar it hurts. 

She is the same temperature as Brooke. Cold. Her arms are perfectly smooth. So young compared to the arms Brooke is used to, like arms from her memories. Vanjie's arms looked like this when Brooke first knew she loved her. Very long ago. Vanessa's arms are inhumanly smooth but now Brooke notices they kept the scar below her elbow and every freckle and Brooke feels better the longer Vanessa holds her.

Vanjie was always part mystery to her. They knew everything about each other after so long together but Brooke also knew she could never truly understand the mind of a human.

She knows for certain Vanessa’s mind is like hers. They are both synths, created in the same way. But confusingly she is still exactly like Vanjie. As surprising and intriguing as she was human.

Brooke thinks maybe there was never as much difference between them as she wondered.

“Wanna drive down to the beach baby? Go in the ocean? You always feel better after a big swim.”

Vanessa tucks Brooke’s hair behind her ear, smiles at her gentle and conspiratorial.

“I can stay underwater with you now. You can show me all those fishes.”

Brooke looks at her and the new Nina did an excellent job of capturing her eyes. As much as a synth’s eyes can look human, they look almost exactly the same. Even if the face around them takes her back eighty two years with nostalgia. To a kiss by the waves that sealed a lifetime of devotion.

Vanjie is still in their bed.

“We have to…” Brooke short circuits as her brain tries to wrap around what they have to do.

“We will. I’ll help you later. Come on, I ain’t gonna get any less dead if we do it now or later. Come outside with me for a minute to clear your head.”

Brooke looks guiltily up the stairs to the bedroom.

“She would want you to. I know she would, ‘cuz I do.”

Brooke is suddenly urgent at the opportunity to know what Vanjie is thinking, wherever she is that Brooke cannot reach her. The synth knows.

“Is she sad to be gone?”

“She sad to leave you. But she ain’t sad to go. She worried about you. But now I can do that for her. That’s why she made me for you.”

“You are not sad.”

“I'm hurting cuz you're hurting. That ain't nice. But no baby, I ain't sad for me."

"I do not understand."

"I was real tired baby. She was ready to sleep. The parts that ain’t tired still here. So I ain't got nothing to be sad about, angel. Let her sleep now. We gotta _live_.”

Brooke does not know if Vanjie told her to say that or if they both understand it the same way because they are the same. The second makes her hopeful, though life teaches her over and over not to expect.

Hoping is a type of expecting so Brooke will try not to hope, but Brooke has nothing else so she will go with Vanessa to the beach now. Before they need to go upstairs and--

Brooke takes Vanessa’s hand to go out to the car. Vanessa is not human so she does not need to find her keys or go to the bathroom first like Vanjie would have. She is immediately ready to go, just like Brooke.

“I can pretend to pee, if it’ll make you feel better?” Vanessa looks at her hopefully.

Brooke always assumed her own innate calmness was because she was a synth but already she can see that Vanessa is less calm than her, excitable like Vanjie was.

She will easily be mistaken for human.

This makes sense. She has more memories of being human than Brooke.

Vanessa takes the keys out of her pocket and throws them across the room.

“Aw shit, I lost my keys. Wait a second baby, I gotta find them before we leave,” Vanessa sounds just like Vanjie always did, but her eyes are twinkling mischief at Brooke as she pretends to look for them.

Brooke thinks of all of the ways humans have tried to describe heaven and they are wrong. It is this.

Maybe she will give Vanessa longer than a year.

Vanessa smiles at her as she opens a jar on the fireplace and pretends to look in it.

“It is you,” Brooke says softly. 

“Yes baby. I’m right here.”

Brooke believes it. She knows this synth is her Vanjie as completely as she once believed it was not.

Brooke comes up behind Vanessa as she lifts a sofa cushion and throws it, an organized imitation of chaos. Pretending she doesn’t know what is underneath.

Brooke wraps arms around Vanessa’s waist and says, “Thank you,” gently against her temple.

“Don’t gotta thank me baby. I’m yours.”

“You are mine,” Brooke tests it out.

Vanessa turns in her arms, strokes her cheek.

Her hands do not shake and they are cold but they are hers. They hold Brooke’s face the same.

“I am very sad. I miss you very much. I miss you warm and human.”

“I know baby. I know,” Vanessa’s fingers stroke the same patterns they always have through Brooke’s hair. Brooke closes her eyes and imagines them warmer.

"I can't give you that but I can still be yours. If you want me."

"I want..." Brooke murmurs to herself, very quietly, still deciding.

She opens her eyes and looks at Vanessa and has not decided yet so Vanessa changes the subject, teasing softly.

"You even miss all my old wrinklies?"

"Yes," Brooke answers immediately, her eyes running intently over Vanessa's face, making Vanessa blink in surprise.

Vanessa was human for a long time so she knows a lot of human expressions and now she makes them out of habit.

"I remember you like this. When I first loved you. But that was long ago." 

Brooke closes her eyes again because this face is too much information and is making her system process slowly. If she just listens to Vanessa and concentrates on her fingers on her scalp she can imagine nothing is different.

"Well, it's still me in here so I can describe all my nasty old human bits if you miss 'em so much," Vanessa laughs softly.

"Fuckin missed being able to bend my knees, I tell you that baby." 

"I am glad you can bend your knees. I am glad it makes you happy. I want that."

Vanessa links her fingers with Brooke's and squeezes.

“You take your time, baby. You don't got to love me like this yet. We got all the time in the world."

Vanessa is as patient as always. Vanjie is the most accommodating towards synths of any human Brooke has met, even the other good ones.

Was. Vanjie was.

But Brooke could not keep her.

Vanjie was human but she was not like other humans. Vanjie once told Brooke she was not like anything else in the world and it is the same for Brooke.

Was. It was the same. Now Vanessa is like Vanjie. 

And Brooke could keep _her_ if she wanted. 

It is not the same but maybe it is enough the same.

Brooke frowns because her eyes are closed and the muscles of her face forget she is not talking to a human.

"You don't got to love me like this ever if you don't want to baby." Vanessa's voice is steady but somehow Brooke can tell she is sad when she says that, even though her voice does not shake like when she was sad as a human.

"It's your choice."

"I love you like anything," Brooke answers and as the words leave her mouth she knows they are true. 

Vanjie's fingers spasm briefly on her scalp and although she was pretending not to be sad when she said it was okay if Brooke did not want to love her anymore, Brooke understands that is relief. 

Brooke wishes she could feel relief.

Wishing is a type of expecting so logically Brooke knows she should stop. Most times Brooke expects she is hurt.

Brooke wished so many times that Vanjie would not die. 

"I love you like anything. But I am very sad. I miss you very very much."

"I know baby. I know."

Vanessa's sure fingers smooth out Brooke's frown, trace over her eyebrows.

"It won’t feel like this forever. I promise. I’ll take care of you.”

Brooke opens her eyes.

“No. I will take care of you.”

Vanessa smiles at her, softly hopeful, and that is her Vanjie's smile no matter what face it is on. She is looking at Brooke like she is the best thing she has ever seen. Like always. 

Hours ago Brooke would have passed the synth in the house without speaking. Now, stronger than her own name, Brooke knows she must protect Vanessa.

Brooke leans down and presses a gentle kiss to her lips. Brooke has learned promises can be made with things other than words and this kiss is her promise.

Vanessa is smiling as Brooke comes close and smiling even more as she pulls away. Vanessa's lips are cold but they are hers.

Now Brooke has her sisters and two things that are only hers. Many others do not even get one.

Now Brooke has her sisters and two things that are only hers. One she will have to bury soon but it will still always be hers. It gave her her heart and she will always keep it with her no matter how far away under the earth she must leave it. One she will be able to keep close for a long time. It is exactly like Brooke's favorite person and that makes it easy to love. 

Now Brooke has her sisters and two things that are only hers and they will be everything she needs.

Everyone important to Brooke who is still alive is a synth. Brooke understands how to protect them completely. In ways she could not help Vanjie or Yvie no matter how big her love was.

She will be good at it.

She will be better.

She will not lose anyone else.

**Author's Note:**

> Why am I writing all these sad things lately?! If I ever get the I Bet sequel finished I promise it is 95% cheerful fluff.
> 
> Again all credit for these gorgeous characters and this world and writing style (if I managed to get anywhere near it!) to the fantastic wreckthatnecklace. 
> 
> This idea came from thinking about what would happen at that point in their robot/human relationship. It was a bit inspired by San Junipero. (If anybody feels like writing a Branjie San Junipero AU I am so here for it!) and maybe also a bit by that other Black Mirror ep Be Right Back. Credit also to that TV show Humans which I believe was the inspiration for the original fic? (Although I haven't actually seen it so don't quote me on that!) Title from Heaven Is A Place On Earth wreckthatnecklace lyrics style (and also from the San Junipero credits!)
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> (Also - wreckthatnecklace can't figure out how to message you outside of a fic comment - hope it's okay by you that I wrote this!? I just love them so much!! Obviously let me know if you have a problem with anything!)
> 
> .
> 
> I am really struggling with loss of work due to COVID 19. If you enjoyed this story, or any of my writing (or hate it but feel like doing something nice today!) please consider [sending me a digital cup of coffee](https://poppedthep.tumblr.com/)! 
> 
> If even half the people who see this did it, it would make a huge difference! 
> 
> If you can’t or don’t want to, that’s cool. People here are the best. You are totally welcome to continue enjoying my stories no matter what!


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